Economic Union Like Old Austrian Empire Vital to Welfare Of Danube Valley Nations, Hungarian Authority Maintains

"The treaties of Versailles, St. Germain, and Trianon have remained intact only through post-war loans extended to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe by the United States and Great Britain," said Dr. Kalman de Buday D.E., honorary Fellow of the Economic Institute of Holland, and Secretary of the National Hungarian Industrial Institute, in an interview last night.

"In splitting the Austrian Empire after the War the Allies broke up the important economic unit of the Danube valley whose very economic existence depends upon free trade within itself, and substituted for it the three small states of modern Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia; each of these has built up a tariff barrier of its own with the result that trade among those countries is at an extremely low ebb.

"The most outstanding fault in the post-war reconstruction of Europe was the total sidestepping of economic considerations, and undue emphasis laid on what is proving to be the less important political and national aspect of the situation. As long as prosperity lasted, however, the United States and Great Britain were able to make loans to Germany and Austria to meet their War obligations, and to the countries in the Danube valley to carry on a rejuvenation of their shattered economic systems. No need for an alteration of existing political arrangements made itself apparent until prosperity ended.

"Now that the crash has come, and loans to the convalescent countries have ceased, the evils of the existing conditions are making themselves apparent. Unless some agreement is reached which will recognize and act upon the predominance of economic over political considerations, the whole social and economic structure of Eastern Europe will be endangered.

"Since the failure of the London Conference, the only hope for the economic recovery of the Danube valley, which has been affected more seriously than any other section of Europe, is the arrival at a mutual agreement for economic unity. In the long run, how- ever, the crisis cannot be solved without the cooperation of Germany and Italy, since Austria is unable to dispose of the surplus wheat produced in Hungary and Czechoslovakia by itself.

The problem thus assumes such proportions that it becomes evident that it can be solved only by a revision of the treaties of Trianon and St. Germain in the direction of restoring the former Austrian economic unity.

"These treaty readjustments can be made only with the cooperation of France, under whose influence they were drawn up. If they are not revised the ensuing economic collapse of the most important Eastern bulwarks of Europe will render acute the danger of a wide spread of Bolshevism through Europe.